10/27/2012

This morning there was an article in our Japanese newspaper (see clip; I am aware that not everybody can read the Japanese; sorry).It says there, that the famous London taxis face a major crisis - the details and background elude me - due to the poor quality of parts manufactured in China.This can also be found here:http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b64b0be8-1d27-11e2-abeb-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2ASGWq4EJ"The company said it was no longer a going concern on Monday after it failed to secure funding from Geely, the Chinese carmaker that owns 20 per cent. This came after the company suspended sales because of a recall of 400 cabs due to problems linked to a Chinese-built component in their steering boxes."andhttp://cars.uk.msn.com/news/london-taxi-maker-in-crisis-bailout-talks"The steering fault is related to a new component sourced from a new Chinese supplier and installed from earlier this year. The firm says it will seek compensation from the supplier."

Well, China is frequently being called the "workhorse" of Asia (or the world). But considering the fact, that either they DO NOT HAVE any decent craftsmen in that country, or if they do, those craftsmen DO NOT take pride in their work,it seems to me that all the people opting for cheap (cheapest) Chinese products may have bet on the wrong horse!

I wrote about this before:http://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/thoacu/62862223.html

AND I have seen parts manufactured in China, ordered by a German manufacturer of coal mills for blast furnaces for a project in Japan (I did the interpretation work). The whole project being worth millions of dollars (!) the parts I saw = crucially important precision bolts and other (VERY expensive!) parts, were thrown thoughtlessly, without any protection into a torn card box.The calling card of "Made in China".

I think the time is long overdue that people realize: "cheap is NOT best" and "Chinese quality" is definetely not something you can rely on!

10/17/2012

There I wrote:But, there is this new wonder slogan:「愛国無罪」meaning literally: as long as it is a patriot act, there will be no charges!Yesterday: drunken boat drivers and toppled cars.Today: destruction of supermarkets and factories.Tomorrow: ... let's kill a few people. Its patriotic and therefore no problem!

Well, it is happening already ...http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20120920a8.htmlThursday, Sep. 20, 2012Suspect arrested in assault on Japanese couple in Hong Kong

I have not followed this, but maybe the man "arrested" has by now been declared a national hero. And since action was most likely a "patriotic act", there will be no charges.

The newest fashion: banning or maybe even destroying booksdoes not show any more maturity.It's the behavior of the unruly kids in Kindergartenhttp://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nb20120920a2.htmlhttp://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20120920b7.htmlhttp://www.wantchinatimes.com/news-subclass-cnt.aspx?id=20120924000105&cid=1101

The "burning of books" has throughout history NEVER done any good to anybodyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_burning

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin_Dynasty"The Qin Dynasty also introduced several reforms: currency, weights and measures were standardized, and a better system of writing was established. An attempt to purge all traces of the old dynasties led to the infamous burning of books and burying of scholars incident, ..."

The "strength of the Chinese is not their maturity, intellectual achievements, refinement, "historical facts" or the like ..... it is simply their number, which allows them to overrun everything/everybody else.Remember the locusts I mentioned in my previous post?

And as I also said before, the world need to think this through a little!

9/16/2012

Personally I doubt that the recently displayed behavior of the Chinese people could meet ANY standards for maturity; such as one might want to expect from a place that is today a "global power" ...
Well, I said it before: I don't know much (nothing) about politics. Therefore, I should probably just shut up, the behavior of our friendly neighbor China really calls for some comments.
One of the triggers of the currently ongoing "anti-Japanese" protests is the quarrel about the Senkaku Islands: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senkaku_Islands "The collective use of the name "Senkaku" to denote the entire group began with the advent of the controversy in the 1970s." "The Japanese central government formally annexed the islands on 14 January 1895." "The islands came under US government occupation in 1945 after the surrender of Japan ended World War II.[17] In
1969, the United Nations Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East
(ECAFE) identified potential oil and gas reserves in the vicinity of the
Senkaku Islands.[20] In 1971, the Okinawa Reversion Treaty passed the U.S. Senate, returning the islands to Japanese control in 1972.[21] Also in 1972, the Taiwanese and Chinese governments officially began to declare ownership of the islands.[22]"
So
--> The Chinese started to show an interest in this piece of "holy
motherland" AFTER oil and gas reserves were found. Isn't that
interesting. How Chinese. Can they (the Chinese) produce any
evidence - and one of those fake documents produced just for this
purpose - that they were just in love with these pieces of rock since
ancient times and therefore have now the "God given right" to destroy
everything Japanese in their path? I would encourage everybody in the global community to make their own judgement.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_China_Sea The Chinese also "NEED" this islands and the waters around them for fishing. Naturally, since they have fished their own waters virtually dry, leaving a marine wasteland. Now they have to move on to exploit other places. Sounds like the locust plague to me.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locust) Billions of locust (Chinese) swarm all over the place and devour everything ...
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/senkaku.htm "The Meiji government incorporated the Senkaku Islands into Okinawa Prefecture in 1895 after it had confirmed that the islands were not under the control of the Qing Dynasty"
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Japan/FG27Dh03.html http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Chinese_submarine_enters_Japanese_waters
"The intrusion occurred on 10 November, Japanese time (UTC+9). The
submarine was quickly spotted by Japan's Self-Defence Forces and was
tracked by helicopter as it wandered in Japanese waters for two hours
before moving north-west. International
law requires a tracked submarine to surface and identify its
nationality in times of peace; the submarine did not do so."
Naturally!!!

BUT ... what would happen, if this were the other way round: a Japanese (or other) submarine entering Chinese waters ...??? Just imagine all the canons fires ...
Again, this probably "only natural" for the Chinese. After all, their great leader put it so eloquently http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mao_Zedong * 枪杆子里面出政权 * "Every Communist must grasp the truth: Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun."
And since China means literally "central country", the Chinese most
obviously assume, that they are the center of the world and have both
the right and obligation to take and do as they see fit.
This finds another wonderful expression. Remember the drunk boat driver who rammed a Japanese coat guard boat and was later declared a hero?
Or the lunatics from Hongkong jumping onto the above mentioned Islands,
who were after their deportation to Hongkong shown on TV celebrating
and drining champaign? Those people that attacked a Japanese embassy car? And todays news: anti-Japanese demonstrations going wild, destroying lots of Japanese properties. Like supermarkets. Only the customers there were Chinese ...
But, there is this new wonder slogan:「愛国無罪」 meaning literally: as long as it is a patriot act, there will be no charges! The legacy of Mao Zedong in its purest form!Yesterday: drunken boat drivers and toppled cars.Today: destruction of supermarkets and factories.Tomorrow: ... let's kill a few people. Its patriotic and therefore no problem!
Think this through yourself. The picture should not be so difficult to see ...
http://world.time.com/2012/08/19/why-asias-maritime-disputes-are-not-just-about-china/
< The reasons that pundits give for Beijing’s bellicosity range from
its appetite for the natural resources of the South China Sea to its
desire to look tough amid an uncertain leadership transition and to stir
some nationalist fervor at home (witness the violent anti-Japanese
protests on the mainland during the weekend) to its irritation at what
it thinks is Washington’s interference in its backyard. At a regional
conference two years ago, in remarks now often cited as a sign of
China’s unilateral ambitions in the South China Sea, Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi infamously declared the body of water to be a “core national interest,” adding: “China is a big country and other countries are small countries, and that is just a fact.”>
Well, that naturally leads straight to those locusts mentioned above.
In
light of these cute tendencies, please reconsider when China claims to
"preserve natural resources, maintain peace and contribute to the
development of the world at large. How can a country that is basically ego-centric, as the country's name itself implies, ever have such altruistic fits ...???
I could go on forever and actually published my personal opinions here before, but ... I don't know nothing ...
http://nyuwa.wordpress.com/2012/02/15/chinese-quality/ (in English) http://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/thoacu/62652273.html (this one is in Japanese)

8/07/2012

This has been in the news here in Japan all over. Sometimes it is called a disgrace, sometimes designated as "a shock to the population".

Well, the other day I wrote a little text in Japanese about my personal view of the "identity" of the Japanese people (http://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/thoacu/63114932.html)

I believe, it is precisely this "loss of identity" - you may call it also fuzziness - of the Japanese that led to this result. In my field of activity = acupuncture, I have been trying to tell the Japanese people, patients, practitioners, leaders of organizations and I even wrote a letter to the government, that the Japanese should take more pride in their traditional skills, techniques, customs, achievements etc.Here with the example of Judo (I started my own "martial arts life" with Judo) the TV shows something that looks MUCH more like wrestling than Judo to me. The Japanese (martial) "art" of Judo has been "westernized".

Then a commentator or a newspaper mentioned somewhere, that athlete XXX gave up his/her (!) adherence to certain ideals/concepts in order pursue "winning".

That is a shame. At least to me. Forsaking the "way" to win a competition. For money and fame.To my mind all "Olympia drivin" = meaning in the interest of "sports".

If Judo = the soft WAY, which is a part of elementary education throughout the country, where every prefecture has a state/prefecturally funded public practice hall = dojois allowed to be pushed down a road of mere atheltic competition .....

I believe the Japanese have lost - or rather forsaken themselves - an essential part of their spiritual heritage.A very unfortunate trend that pervades many areas of life and makes me very sad.

But then again, many (Japanese) people would object: "What do YOU know. You are just another "gaijin" (= foreigner) who does not understand anything.And they are probably right.It is only, that I DO have this opinion of mine ....

6/28/2012

I am sure Steve Jobs (Apple co-founder) had his particular "vision" when he contributed to the design / production of the smart phone. And one thing seems to be sure: his vision has changed the "vision" of the world as we know it.Unfortunately - in my opinion - not for the better.

Nowadays ***EVERYBODY*** seems to be clutching one of those devices, regardless of whether they are Apple products or not. People standing, sitting, walking, riding the train, having lunch, or - this is my favorite! - a man peeing in a public toilet ..... just about ***EVERYBODY*** is starring at those pathetically small screens, voluntarily (???) limiting their respective "vision" to a distance of 30 cm. Thereby they may be "loosing sight" of people standing 1 m away.People walk around town while staring at this 30 cm-distance and if other people are not careful, they will be literally "run over" by the effects of this wonderful technical innnovation.

Vision =>* [uncountable] the ability to think about and plan for the future, using intelligence and imagination, especially in politics and business* [countable] someone’s idea or hope of how something should be done, or how it will be in the future (e.g., a vision of a utopian society without money)and* [uncountable] the ability to see

The "vision" behind these products seems to obstruct the vision of the masses. Literally in the sense of "ability to see" (beyond the screen) and maybe less obviously but still with little disguise "the ability to think about and plan for the future".

It appears, that this thing does not limit its malicious attack on human freedom to vision alone, but it seems to offer a music player too, so that people stuff their ears with strange little things they call "ear phones", thereby effectively disabling a very sensitive telemetry system supposed to detect intelligence about far away, probably invisible things/events.

If you now add "not speaking" to the "not seeing" and "not hearing" features, you end up with the "three wise monkeys" ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_wise_monkeys

In an extended interpretation: don’t look at what is going on, don’t listen at what is going on and do not talk (back) about what is going on …

The profile of the perfect citizen of any society – with the exception of Utopia maybe -

3/06/2012

Good evening, or rather good morning from Japan
Well, while this about a sort of “personal endeavor”, it is not really about me, but rather about Japan. And I definitely DO NOT have any qualifications that would make me a legitimate representative of Japan.But, …
I have now lived in this country for 33 years, but only 22 years in my
“home country” Germany. That means, I spent more than half of my live in
Japan.
While my original purpose to come here was Japanese archery (Kyudo), I
entered a vocational school for acupuncture here, obtained my licenses
something like 28 years ago and for 17 years now run my own little
(microscopic!) clinic.
Personally I believe, that Japan is a sort of “treasure island” in regard to variety and amount of information, skills, technical know-how etc. when it comes to ORIENTAL MEDICINE.I
prefer the term “oriental medicine” over “Chinese medicine”, because it
suggests, that there are also other possibilities/views than the
state-sanctioned, uniform (the Chinese like to call that sometimes
“standardized”) and thus rather dull single pattern TCM. Many people do
argue about it, but I am always under the impression, that here in Japan
there are as many “styles” as there are practitioners.
While the Chinese vigorously pursue their declared goal of achieving “world domination” in regard to the “intellectual property” of Chinese medicine,
the Japanese people on the other hand appear to be somewhat
handicapped: first, they are rather shy = are not much interested in
“speaking up”; second (related to the first aspect), they seem to suffer
from an inferiority complex, because they are not good (at all!) at
English and third, they themselves have not very much ambition to
present themselves to the world.
Yet, you can rest assured, that in addition to ALL the information
pertaining to acupuncture available in China, there is a tremendous
amount of additional information available. While I would be VERY
cautious when viewing so-called scientific reports originating in China,
there is usually MUCH LESS likelihood, that (scientific or otherwise)
reports from Japan are outright fake or at least highly questionable.
This does not rule out, that some people have opinions that oppose those
of other people and a quarrel about right or wrong would be rather
futile here.
I have been trying to convince the Japanese people for something like
20 years now, that they should make more of their information,
including books, magazines etc., available to the world – meaning they
should prepare at least summaries in western languages like English,
German, French, Spanish etc. So far, I had very little success.
I do have a little website of my own (with many flaws, because I am not very computer savy): http://www.einklang.com/
Most of it is in Japanese, but there are also German and English
sections. And these were the trigger for my above mentioned endeavor.
Occasionally foreigners stumble across my pages on their search about
information on Japan. It then happens, that I am asked about possible
sites/occasions to study a little about acupuncture in Japan.
Unfortunately, I am not a very social person and therefore know only few
people, who would be willing to help out.
Maybe my constant bugging has contributed to lead to an “official
decision” to promote acceptance of foreigners in Japan on the general
assembly of the JSAM 4-5 years ago … but nothing much has happened
since.
The way I see things, and some of my efforts are detailed here:http://www.einklang.com/Foreign%20study.htm
or also in blog entrieshttps://nyuwa.wordpress.com/2012/02/06/ … -a-chance/https://nyuwa.wordpress.com/2012/02/06/ … e-excuses/
Last year, during the great earthquake Australian visitors were here and one is going to return this year. Incredible!https://nyuwa.wordpress.com/2012/01/30/ … le-return/
As I said, personally I would love to see the “Japanese way of acupuncture” find a greater audience in the world.
Even if no one here actually has any intention of coming to Japan (that
is just fine!), maybe if there were once in a while inquiries as to the
possibility of learning (as a foreigner) about acupuncture in Japan, or
shadowing in clinics … maybe the Japanese people would finally become a
little more stimulated/motivated to actually SHARE some of their very
valuable material.
You could try for example the website of the The Japan Society of Acupuncture and Moxibustion (jsam):
Japan Society of Acupuncture and Moxibustion -> http://www.jsam.jp/ -> honbu@jsam.jp （ask for: Mr. Hirokazu Inami)http://en.jsam.jp/contents/010000SsehRk/
Japan Acupuncture & Moxibustion Association -> http://www.harikyu.or.jp/ -> info@harikyu.or.jp
Tel：03-3985-6771 Fax：03-3985-6622 (no English page):
If it should prove helpful, please feel free to mention, that you
learned about the above mentioned websites through my website (the page
about “foreign studies”).
I believe, there is an abundance of material AND techniques probably
better suited for western people than a major part the Chinese style.
In case this is completely off course here, I would like to beg your pardon and apologize again.
Greetings from Japan

In an internet age, changes to copyright enforcement or online commerce can have devastating effects on individual freedom and the prosperity of entire industries. The resounding defeat of SOPA & PIPA in Congress show that the public demands a say in any new policy that impacts the future of the internet.

When Congress listens to the people and rejects one-sided tech policy, it's wrong and anti-democratic for unelected officials to move forward with similar policy in trade agreements, especially when these trade agreements are negotiated in secret, giving special access to politically-connected industries while public interest groups are locked out.

Any changes in these areas should only be made by Congress, with vigorous public debate. You should drop any changes to copyright, online commerce, or information policy from TPP immediately.

Please reply with any questions.

6 Reasons to oppose ACTA

ACTA locks countries into obsolete copyright and patent laws. If a democracy decides on less restrictive laws that reflect the reality of the internet, ACTA will prevent that. ACTA criminalizes users by making noncommercial, harmless remixes into crimes if "on a commercial scale" (art 2.14.1). Many amateur works achieve a commercial scale on sites like Youtube. ACTA, like SOPA, could mean jail time for the Justin Biebers of the world. ACTA Criminalizes legitimate websites, making them responsible for user behavior by "aiding and abetting". (art 2.14.4). Like SOPA, the founders of your favorite sites could be sued or (worse) thrown in jail for copyright infringement by their users. ACTA will let rightsholders use laughably inflated claims of damages (based on the disproven idea that every download or stream is a lost sale) to sue people. As if suing amazing artists, video makers and websites for millions wasn't hard enough! ACTA Permanently bypasses democracy by giving the "ACTA Committee" the power to "propose amendments to [ACTA]" (art 6.4). In other words, voting for ACTA writes a blank check to an unelected committee. These closed-door proceedings will be a playground for SOPA-supporters like the MPAA. Trade agreements are a gaping loophole, a backdoor track that, even though it creates new law, is miles removed from democracy. It's a secretive process that's tailor-made to serve politically connected companies. And the movie studios behind SOPA? They're experts at it. If we can't make secretive trade agreements harder to pass than US law, our internet's future belongs to the lobbyists behind SOPA.

1/18/2012

Apparently the US government - with the help or on initiative of large companies/commercial enterprises - is trying to implement censorship to the information available on the internet.

That sounds PRECISELY like the enhanced censorship the Chinese government has annnounced to apply to their equivalents of twitter etc. (this was on the regular news today) "to protect the society from bad influences".Sure! Meaning: further enforcing censorship of opinions opposed to the "communist" dictatorship.

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/greek/greek_oath.html

Implementing censorship (I can image that for example Microsoft would LOVE to do that!!!) could result in the following. The beginning of the Hippocratic oath censored ->

The Hippocratic Oath(Original Version)

I've censored the following, in protest of a bill that gives any corporation and the US government the power to censor the internet--a bill that could pass THIS WEEK. To see the uncensored text, and to stop internet censorship, visit: http://americancensorship.org/posts/43096/uncensor

-->I █████ by ██████ the █████████, ███████████, and ██████, and All-████, and all the ████ and █████████, ████, █████████ to my ███████ and █████████, I ████ ████ ████ ████ and ████ ███████████.http://americancensorship.org/posts/43096/uncensor

Well, I STRONGLY OPPOSE all government or commercial idiots trying to do this to "their people" andsupport free information - like the wonderful work of the people at Wikipedia!

1/01/2012

I
suspect, the scanned comic is still copyright protected – although
the comic from which it is scanned is more than 50 years old – but
hope, Charlie Brown, or rather Linus, will forgive me for quoting him
in this way …